Beauty
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Two girls at Subaru's school with very different faces, very different histories, and yet both are threatened by the same problem in their hearts. Can Subaru help either?
1. Chapter 1

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Beauty" follows "Innocence" as my second Tokyo Babylon fic originally written nine years ago, and takes place around the time of Volume 4 of the manga. As in "Innocence," I've used honorifics throughout because they are so much a part of the way the _Tokyo Babylon _characters interact and express their feelings towards each other and towards third parties. "Beauty" is also notable in my own mind, at least, for my horrible misuse of the word "ikiryo," which I used out of sheer ignorance in the way it's presented in the original AD&D _Oriental Adventures _rulebook. I haven't corrected it herein, because I don't know what the accurate creature would be! This "coat" incident referenced near the end of this chapter is taken from Volume 1 of the manga (the story "T.Y.O.")._

Subaru Sumeragi smiled happily as he walked out of school at the end of the day, bookbag in his hand and sketch pad tucked under his other arm. All around him, other students flowed out of the building, laughing and talking happily about teachers, schoolwork, club activities, the latest TV and film stars, and their current romantic interests. It made him feel good to be a part of it, to be in the middle of such a normal teenage scene.

Moments like this could be rare for Subaru. Only sixteen years old, Subaru nevertheless was the head of Japan's most noted family of onmyouji. Very often, he would be called away by government ministers, powerful corporations, or just ordinary people to perform magical work on their behalf. His school understood this and allowed him to miss time so long as he kept up with the assignments, but it meant that Subaru never really got any more chance to settle into a normal routine here in Tokyo than he had when he had been growing up under his grandmother's tutelage in Kyoto.

For a week, though, Subaru hadn't had any work, and he had begun to feel more at ease with school. It was fun for him to have no greater concerns than his shaky English grades or getting to the lunch counter before all the good sandwiches had been taken by other students. His twin sister, Hokuto, would probably laugh if she heard him say that; she was forever telling him that he should be more conscious of his important position as head of the Sumeragi family.

Then again, maybe she would understand. Hokuto had a much sounder grasp of reality than Subaru did; she would know the difference between wishing to be ordinary and realizing that one had to react to the world as it really was. Subaru's ideals were his problem; they made him act, sometimes, as if the world was the way he wanted it to be.

He couldn't stop himself, though, from looking for the good in people.

Or from feeling sad when he didn't find it.

A couple of students bumped against Subaru's right side in passing; he turned his head and saw that the crowd was parting, pressing to both sides to give one person room to pass. She swept through the crowd like a queen, the others stepping out of her way almost unconsciously, just because it was the natural thing to do.

Subaru could hear the whispered comments the students made as they watched her pass by:

"...a goddess..."

"...so beautiful..."

"...in our third-period history class, she told the teacher that..."

"...heard that she's rich..."

"...wonder why she doesn't..."

"...ice queen; she never smiles..."

He remembered her name; she was Tamiko Hironagi. Tamiko wasn't in Subaru's class, but was the same age and at the same grade level. She was also the most beautiful girl the young onmyouji had ever seen. Her complexion was very pale, almost white, which set up an exquisite contrast with her long, silky ribbon of glossy black hair. The bone structure of her face was delicate and feminine. Her eyes were so dark that they almost matched her hair, and were framed by long lashes. Her lips were red -- _blood on the snow_, Subaru thought -- but were set in a tight, thin line.

She walked stiffly, Subaru saw, as if she was keeping something bottled up inside herself, not revealing any of her emotions.

"Hi, Subaru-kun!"

Subaru turned his head to see who had approached him. It was a classmate of his, Yuri Takahashi.

"Good afternoon, Yuri-san."

"I see that our school's Miss Gorgeous has caught your eye."

There was bitterness in the girl's voice. Perhaps it was not all that surprising; Tamiko and Yuri were like the sun and the moon. Yuri was short and overweight, but more than that her face was simply unattractive. Her hair was short and dull, her eyes small.

Hokuto could do something with her, Subaru thought; despite her outrageous tastes, Subaru's sister had a good sense of what colors, hairstyles, fashions, and cosmetics suited a person. Yuri definitely lacked that instinct.

"Well," she continued gamely, "you'd make a cute couple. After all, you're almost as beautiful as she is!"

Subaru blushed, making Yuri giggle. Then, she suddenly grew serious, stopping in her tracks, eyes downcast. Subaru stopped too, wondering what had provoked the change.

Yuri took a deep breath.

"Subaru-kun...would you help me with our sketching project?"

Subaru blinked.

"Of course I will. I'm not very good," he added modestly, "but I'll try."

Yuri looked up, her eyes widening.

"You will?"

"Yes," Subaru said simply, not understanding why the girl was getting so emotional over the point. He would have been happy to help anyone who needed him to the best of his ability, after all, and Yuri was doing fairly well in art class, so the assignment couldn't have been that important to her, could it?

"That's wonderful!" she exclaimed happily.

Subaru smiled. It was nice to see Yuri in such good spirits.

"Was there anything special that you wanted to sketch?"

She nodded.

"Yes; I was thinking of drawing the Tokyo Government Building. I want to show it towering over the city, like...like a king towering above his subjects that kneel at his feet."

It was a powerful image she called forth, or perhaps it was just the intensity in her voice that made Subaru picture the building in his mind, its twin towers making its face resemble that of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a building that had once reigned over its city the way the Government Building did over Tokyo.

"Let me call my sister, then," Subaru said. "She'll worry if I don't come home for dinner like we planned. Then we can go."

"Oh, that will be fine!" Yuri agreed happily. They started walking, but got no further than the gates of the school grounds.

That was when the surge of feeling shot through Subaru. It was nothing tangible, but Subaru was such a powerful onmyouji that he could feel the presence of most supernatural manifestations if they were close enough, even if he was not actively searching. He felt such a manifestation now, harsh and sharp-edged and out of place, and quickly opened his awareness to seek it.

He wouldn't have needed his magical senses on this occasion, though; he could have located the trouble by the piercing scream that rang out. Subaru dropped his books and sketch pad and sprinted across the yard towards the danger he felt.

The victim was obvious; she had fallen to her knees, her back arched unnaturally, all the muscles in her torso tensed, head thrown back and mouth wide open. All around her was a ring of students, staring in shock and horror.

The girl was Tamiko Hironagi.

Subaru could sense the emotions in the air; hatred, rage, and envy sizzling with a life of their own. This was the force attacking the girl; he had to disrupt it quickly before it could do her serious harm. There was no time for a complex spell; Subaru took three cabalistic slips of parchment from his inside jacket pocket and hurled them towards Tamiko while speaking a word of command. The charms transformed into birds made of glowing white light; they swirled around Tamiko in a circular pattern, starting low and rising with each spiral to form a cylindrical barrier. The cloud of hostile influence was disrupted almost at once; Tamiko sagged to her hands and knees, then collapsed, unconcious. Subaru rushed at once to her side.

The three slips of paper fluttered to the ground around them.

"Tamiko-san, are you all right?" he asked rhetorically, cradling her in his arms. Even nconcious, she was trembling, her body still feeling the effects of the attack.

"Someone call an ambulance!" Subaru cried out.

The students that had been standing around gaping seemed to shake off their paralysis. Some dashed off to summon help, others merely went on about their business now that the "show" was over.

Concerned, Subaru went to the hospital with Tamiko, who seemed to be suffering badly from the shock.

Yuri spent a long time staring after them.

-X X X-

Subaru was sitting in the waiting room in the hospital two hours later, elbows resting on his knees, chin balanced on the heels of his gloved hands. He was deep in thought, and didn't hear anyone approach until a smooth, masculine voice cut through his awareness.

"Is the girl all right, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru looked up to see a tall, handsome man with light brown eyes hidden behind glasses looking down at him.

"Seishiro-san! What are you doing here?" he said, surprised. Seishiro Sakurazuka was a veterinarian, although Subaru knew that he was also familiar with some of the same occult areas that he was. Seishiro was a friend that the Sumeragi twins had met when they came to Tokyo.

Maybe more than a friend.

"That was my doing!" Hokuto said, leaning out from behind Seishiro.

"Hokuto-chan! You too?"

Hokuto smiled. Male-female twins couldn't be identical, genetically, but Subaru and Hokuto might as well have been; they had the same pixie face, the same short haircut, the same bright green eyes. The difference in their personalities was shoen by Hokuto's clothes: she had on one of her handmade fancy-dress outfits, this one a black catsuit, complete with fuzzy ears and tail, with a ruffled pink skirt. Hokuto was like that, enthusiastic and outgoing while Subaru was shy, more gentle and sensitive.

"That's right, she said happily. "When you called to say you were here at the hospital and would be home late, I decided that we should come out and keep you compant. So, I called Sei-chan!"

"You didn't have to come all the way out here just for me," Subaru protested. "I could have taken the subway home."

"Ah!" Hokuto said, "but Sei-chan was more than happy to put himself out on your behalf. No sacrifice is too great for true love!"

"Hokuto-chan!" Subaru exclaimed, blushing. She was always teasing him like that, and he was never sure how much she meant it.

"Hokuto-chan," Seishiro said with a tone of mild reproof, "Subaru-kun must be very worried about his friend."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't think..."

"It's all right," Subaru quickly reassured her. "I am very glad that you've come."

Hokuto hopped into the seat across from her brother.

"So how is the girl?" she asked, returning to Seishiro's original question.

Subaru sighed.

"They're not done with their tests yet, but so far the doctors think that she'll be all right. Tamiko-san's muscles were hurt by suddenly contracting all of them as hard as she could, but they say that there was no damage to ligaments or bones."

Seishiro nodded.

"Yes, she was very lucky that you were there, Subaru-kun. Those sorts of sudden, involuntary contractions can inflict serious injury, such as in a severe case of tetanus where a sick person can break their own jaw. The maximal effort a human body can produce is much more powerful than most people realize."

"Wow, Sei-chan, you know so much!"

"I'm not sure that I understand what caused it in the first place, though."

Hokuto nodded agreement, turning to her brother.

"You weren't very clear on the phone, Subaru."

Subaru tapped his fingers together.

"It's kind of hard to explain...It wasn't any kind of spirit, or a hostile spell; it was just...energy. That's why it was easy for me to disrupt, because there was no cohesive force behind it."

Hokuto snapped her fingers.

"Like the coat?" she asked, referring to an earlier case of Subaru's, where a fashionable coat bought on sale had become the focus of all of the greed and envy of those who had failed to buy it.

"Yes, that's right," her brother decided after a few moments' thought. "It was as if all of the negative emotions people felt towards Tamiko-san suddenly had manifested and attacked her physically."

"Human emotions are a very powerful force," Seishiro commented. "Almost everything important that people do, either for 'good' or 'evil,' rises from an emotional response. Wars start out of hatred or greed, mobs rise against their neighbors from fear and desperation, lust and passion drive men and women to crimes in their personal lives...it isn't surprising that an emotional force could manifest by itself."

"Seishiro-san..."

The door clicked open. Tamiko stood there, looking tired and worn, hands clutched meekly in front of her. Even exhausted as she was, her beauty was obvious; she looked like some sort of tragic figure on the stage.

"Subaru-kun, I..." she began, then shook her head slightly and started over. "The doctor said that it was you who brought me here. Thank you." She bowed slightly.

"Are you feeling better, Tamiko-san?"

She nodded.

"The doctor says that I'll be a bit stiff for a day or so, but that there aren't any further complications."

"That's great!" Subaru said, beaming happily. "I'm so glad!"

"Are your parents coming to pick you up, Miss Hironagi?" Seishiro asked politely.

Tamiko shook her head.

"Why should they? I'm fine," she answered a bit too quickly. "I can take the train home."

"Would you like me to come with you?" Subaru asked solicitously. There was an even easier solution than that, but Subaru would never have thought of volunteering Seishiro as a driver; it simply never crossed his mind.

It was probably better that he hadn't; Tamiko froze up completely.

"That is hardly necessary," she snapped, the frost in her voice unmistakable. "I am grateful for your help, but really, that was quite enough." Without stopping even to hear Subaru's stammered apology, she spun on her heel and stalked off towards the elevators.

"That was a heartless way to treat Subaru!" Hokuto protested angrily.

Seishiro said nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

The day after the incident, Hokuto was chattering away happily with her friends when she saw Tamiko enter the classroom across the hall.

"Excuse me, will you?" she told her friends, and got up. Hokuto checked her watch; homeroom didn't start for another ten minutes. That was enough time, she decided, and crossed the hall to Tamiko's classroom.

The beautiful girl was sitting by herself in a window seat. The bright sun struck glittering highlights off her glossy hair; her expression was cold and distant. More than one of her classmates cast envious or admiring glances her way, but none made any attempt to approach her. Hokuto had no such reservations; she drew more than one pair of raised eyebrows by walking right up to Tamiko's desk.

"Hey!"

Tamiko's head snapped up.

"What? Who are you? You seem familiar."

"I'm Subaru's sister. You do remember Subaru, don't you? The one who saved your life yesterday?"

Hokuto found the other girl's reaction very strange. It started out as a sneer, then there was a momentary flash of anger in her eyes, and then she seemed to sigh with her entire body before settling back into her usual impassiveness.

"You were in the waiting room last night, weren't you? Then you know that I was all right. Calling an ambulance hardly qualifies as saving my life. If he hadn't done it then someone else, probably a teacher, would have."

Hokuto's eyes narrowed.

"You don't have any idea what happened to you, do you?"

Tamiko blinked; the question had caught her off-guard.

"It was a seizure -- the doctor said that it was probably brought on by stress."

"Is that all you can remember?" Hokuto challenged.

The beautiful girl blinked again, so taken aback by Hokuto's earnestness that she gave in to the demand, attempting to send her mind through the experience.

"I -- everything was normal; I was on my way out of school, on my way to _juku_. About twenty yards from the school gates, I..."

Tamiko fell silent, thinking. Her right hand clenched suddenly, involuntarily, into a fist, the knuckles turning white, fingernails digging into her palm.

"I could feel it," she whispered. "They hate me...they all hate me. I could feel it like a thousand eyes on me, glaring...burning their hatred into me..."

It must have been, Hokuto realized, the first time that Tamiko had relived the event. Losing consciousness had allowed her to shut it away from her waking mind, but the walls of denial were new and fragile, easily broken down by the simple act of trying to recall the events.

"Then...birds?" She raised her head wonderingly, those incredible black eyes wide and gleaming. "Three white doves, circling me, holding the hatred away." With growing amazement she said, "I don't understand, but...the birds were Subaru-kun's, weren't they? That's what you meant when you said that he saved my life..."

Her head dropped; she could not bear to face Hokuto.

"...and I as good as slapped him in the face. I had no idea; I thought that--"

"I'm not the one you should apologize to," Hokuto said, not unkindly.

"You're right, of course. I've made a selfish, foolish mistake, and have to make it up to the one I've hurt." She smiled up at Hokuto. "I hope that Subaru-kun knows what a staunch defender he has."

Neither Tamiko nor Hokuto noticed the soft whisper of an eagle's wings.

-X X X-

Across the street, Seishiro Sakurazuka stood, looking up at the school building. The sun was full in his face, the reflection turning his glasses into blank, opaque panels. His shadow was thrown on the wall behind him, a black silhouette staining the gray stone. Someone watching closely might have seen the shadow of an eagle settle on the silhouette's shoulder, then fade away as Seishiro lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long time, then exhaled slowly, sending a slow gray stream flowing upward. He smiled and began to walk away.

"You're quite right, Miss Hironagi," he said softly. "Our charming Hokuto-chan can be very fierce when she is protecting Subaru-kun. It would never do to underestimate her."

-X X X-

"Hello, Yuri-san," Subaru said gamely. Yuri looked up from her easel. "Pardon me for interrupting you."

"It's all right," she said.

"I wanted to apologize to you, for not going sketching with you yesterday."

Subaru looked over her shoulder at the sketch she was working on now. It showed the Tokyo Tower, drawn as if the viewer was right under it, looking up at the observation deck. It was the sky, though, that caught Subaru's attention; the clouds came rushing from all directions towards the point of the Tower, mirroring the way the buildings below seemed to be reaching upward.

"Wow! This is really good!" he exclaimed. Seeing that one corner of the sky wasn't finished yet, he added, "Did you do it all here? The detail is really incredible!"

Yuri smiled, blushing slightly at his praise.

"No, I...I couldn't do anything like this from my mind alone. I sketched the Tower last week, downtown. The rest of it I've been adding here."

"Reality and imagination mixed. I like it a lot!" He turned from the sketch to Yuri. "You like to draw buildings, don't you?"

She nodded.

"I know this will sound silly to you, Subaru-kun, but when I look at nature, I see something that has majesty and power for its own sake. I can't change that by drawing it. All a sketch can do is blunt it, by filtering it through my mind -- but a building, that's something entirely human, so when I draw one, I can express something of myself in it."

"I don't think that's silly at all," Subaru said. He wasn't sure if he agreed with Yuri, but he understood her feelings. "I think buildings can be powerful symbols."

"This Tokyo that we live in...do you like it, Subaru-kun?"

He smiled.

"Yes, I do. I really do love Tokyo."

"You're too gentle-hearted about people, Subaru-kun."

"That's what my sister is always telling me," he admitted sheepishly.

They both dissolved into happy laughter, laughter that was interrupted by the soft, metallic snick of the door latch. Subaru and Yuri turned their heads to see Tamiko framed in the doorway, hands folded at her waist.

"Subaru-kun...may I speak with you privately?" she asked softly.

"What's wrong, Tamiko-san?"

"Please?" she asked plaintively, unwilling to extend herself further, or perhaps unable to.

"Do you mind, Yuri-san?" Subaru asked the other girl.

Yuri opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, and shook her head.

"Go on, Subaru-kun."

Subaru was sure that there was something Yuri was not saying, but what could he do? Certainly he could not try to get Yuri to expose what it was in front of the other girl.

"All right, then," he finally said.

Yuri watched the two of them leave together, the two beautiful young people side-by-side. When the door clicked shut, she turned back to her easel and tried to resume her sketching. After only a few strokes, though, she squeezed her eyes shut. With one convulsive twist of her fingers, the soft graphite stick snapped in two.

-X X X-

Tamiko took Subaru up to the roof of the school; they leaned against the railing, looking down at the school grounds. There was a wind; it tossed Tamiko's long black hair out behind her, but there was a bitter scent to it. No doubt it was just the smog, but to Subaru it seemed as if each breath tasted like the pain emanating from the girl next to him.

"Your sister came to see me this morning."

"Hokuto-chan?"

"She made me realize a few things, one of which was that I owe you much more than I thought last night when I was so rude to you. I -- I made stupid, egotistical assumptions that were unforgivable."

Instinctively, Subaru protested the beautiful girl's tone of self-loathing.

"You shouldn't say such things, Tamiko-san!"

"Even when they're true?"

"Being rude to me isn't unforgivable," Subaru told her.

Tamiko shook her head.

"That isn't all." She combed a few windblown strands of hair out of her eyes with long, slender fingers. "When I was told that you had called for the ambulance, gone to the hospital, and waited for me to wake up, I assumed that you were an admirer. When you offered to see me home, I thought that you wanted to capitalize on your devotion."

Subaru had gone white.

"You mean, to use your illness as an excuse to get a...a date?" It was a revolting thought, and the shock showed in his tone. Another person might have been furious with Tamiko for assuming such a thing about them, but any anger Subaru felt was quickly dissipated when he began to consider how the events of last night could have appeared to her. "No wonder you walked out on me!"

"Yes, but I didn't know what you had done for me then!" She went on to explain what Hokuto had forced her to realize that morning, the words tumbling out of her in a rush. "I...I'm so ashamed of how I treated you, Subaru-kun!" Tamiko wailed at the end of it.

Subaru smiled reassuringly.

"There must have been a lot of pain in your life, hasn't there, Tamiko-san?" he asked quietly, his voice understanding.

"I loathe the way I look," she answered him, her voice full of bitterness.

"But...but, you're so beautiful, Tamiko-san!" he protested.

"That's exactly it," she answered. "Even when I was a child, my friends would tell me, 'I wish that I was as pretty as you.' Every time they said that, I wanted to laugh. I was so proud that I had something that others wanted. Then, when I got to junior high, it was still funny, only then it was me that they were laughing at. All the boys idolized me; I was the one they all wanted to ask out. Only, none of them cared about me. None of them wanted to know what kind of person I was. All they wanted was this face...this face that so many of the girls hated me for having."

Tamiko folded her arms on the rail and rested her chin on them, looking out at the city.

"When my family lived in Osaka, I had a best friend; her name was Miyako. She was the only person I knew who really liked me for who I was. We would do everything together, share all our secrets. She told me, once, that there was a boy who she was in love with. I thought she should be brave and confess her love to him, and it seemed that I was right, because when she did, he asked her out. They dated for about a month, and then the boy came to me and said that he was really in love with me, that he had asked Miyako out only so he could get closer to me.

"She heard him say that.

"Miyako must have really loved him too, because she killed herself because of it. She filled the bathtub with water, got into it, and cut her wrists with a kitchen knife. She slowly bled, and bled, until she just went to sleep, forever.

"My father received a promotion at his job, and we moved to Tokyo a month later."

There were tears glistening on her cheeks, gleaming trails of liquid fire reflecting the afternoon sun.

"That's why...that's why you've always held yourself apart from other people here," Subaru realized.

"Yes."

The wind whispered softly around them.

"But that only makes it worse, doesn't it?" he asked. "No one knows you at all, now. No one knows anything about you."

"So the boys see me as the unattainable goddess and the girls as the cold-hearted bitch? That my actions only make it worse because I won't let anyone know anything but how I look? Is that what you were going to say, Subaru-kun?"

He nodded.

"Well," she told him, tilting her head so she could look at him, "at least this way no one gets hurt but myself."

_What can I do?_ Subaru thought helplessly. How could he make her understand that she hadn't done anything wrong?

"Tamiko-san..." he began haltingly.

She chuckled softly.

"What now? Is this where you tell me that none of this was my fault?" she said, again expressing his thoughts before he could say them. "That people make their own choices in life, and that I can't hold myself responsible for them? That I can't let the past keep me from living my own life in the present?" It was obvious from her self-mocking tone that she had already told herself all these things, and dismissed them.

"Tamiko-san, this isn't how life should be!"

"You're too much of an optimist, Subaru-kun," she told him with a gentle smile. "You don't care at all about who I am or what I look like, do you? You'd do the same for anyone in my position. That's sweet; our world needs more people like you."

Subaru blushed at her compliments.

Tamiko stood up and turned fully towards him, her hand still resting lightly on the railing.

"Subaru-kun, I do want to thank you for what you did, but...please, from now on, just forget about me."

"Tamiko-san...I..."

He felt it this time, an instant before it struck. It wasn't like the previous day's attack, though; it was quick and precise, and there was a presence to it, something specific instead of nebulous

A surge of wind came from nowhere. It seemed to flow around Subaru with no effect, but sent Tamiko stumbling.

The railing crumpled beneath her weight, like it was made of paper-thin aluminum instead of steel.

Then, the presence was gone.

And the girl was falling.


	3. Chapter 3

Desperately, Subaru took a step forward and then dove. He landed prone, chest slamming into the brick lip where the railing had been anchored, but his dive covered the distance fast enough so that when his left hand shot down over the edge, his gloved fingers closed around Tamiko's wrist. Pain shot through his arm and shoulder; Subaru was a slightly-built young man, not particularly strong. Quickly, he reached down with his other hand, hoping to take some of the weight onto that arm. It helped some; it no longer felt like his arm was being wrenched from its socket, but he still didn't have the strength to pull Tamiko up.

She wasn't even looking at him, Subaru realized; Tamiko's head was hanging, gaze directed downward with her bangs falling across her eyes. She could have grabbed Subaru's wrist for additional support, or she could have reached up with her free hand, but she did neither. Was she

unconscious?

Or, did she just not care?

"Please!" Subaru shouted. "Someone help, please!" He couldn't hold on forever, and if he couldn't pull her up, she would fall from the four-story school building.

His hands and arms throbbed with pain. Subaru would be lucky to hold on for a few more minutes.

Then, he felt a body covering his, a face next to his own, two strong arms reaching down to take Tamiko's weight. Subaru turned his head to look at the man.

"Seishiro-san!"

"Don't worry, Subaru-kun; we'll save your friend quickly, before Hokuto-chan has a chance to scold us for being in this shameless position," Seishiro told him with a smile. Subaru was amazed at how easily the other man accepted the burden of Tamiko's weight, and brought her safely up to the roof.

"That's twice now that you've saved my life, Subaru-kun," the girl told him softly. "Please, do not go to that much trouble a third time."

-X X X-

Subaru had a blank look on his face as he stared out the window of Seishiro's car. Since he was at the school anyway, the older man had offered the Sumeragi twins a ride home.

"So what were you doing there anyway, Sei-chan?" Hokuto accused him.

This was usually the point where Seishiro ducked her questions with a swift change of subject, but this time he surprised her with a direct answer.

"I was watching over Subaru-kun."

He smiled kindly at her.

"Eh? Why?"

"This isn't his usual work situation. Subaru-kun may be a skilled professional, but he is still a young man. Moreover, he is too kind; his first reaction is always to protect others, so he needs someone else to protect him."

Hokuto's eyes widened in comprehension.

"So you knew that something was going to happen, Sei-chan?"

Seishiro shook his head.

"Not for certain. I suspected that it might, though. When emotions are so strong that they become a tangible force, the situation is inherently unstable."

"Adults don't usually realize that the emotions of high-schoolers are just as stong as their own," Hokuto agreed. "You're very perceptive."

Seishiro flashed her a smile.

"Well, having a high-school student for a lover, one has to learn such things."

For the second time in only a few moments, Hokuto was caught by surprise. Subaru didn't react at all to Seishiro's teasing; there were no stammered protests, no blushes, no change of expression at all.

"Something's strange though," Hokuto mused. "As I understand it, when emotion builds up like that, it strikes, then whatever the outcome it dissipates. Each time it has to build up again, because there's no cohesive force holding it together, and it doesn't do that in just one day! How could Tamiko-san have been attacked again so soon?"

"You answered that yourself, didn't you?" Seishiro asked enigmatically.

Hokuto frowned.

"You're terrible, Sei-chan! It's not nice to talk in riddles."

"If it wasn't the gathered, uncontrolled force of emotion, then it was something specific."

Frowning, Hokuto thought that over. Seishiro was right, of course, and if Tamiko had attracted so much hatred and jealousy from her peers that it had manifested itself in the physical world, it wasn't unthinkable that an individual, whether human or spirit, would have murderous intent.

"I wish we could tell what it was."

"An ikiryo," Subaru replied dully, speaking for the first time since he had entered the car. "I felt it in the moment that it attacked."

Hokuto whistled.

"That's bad."

"An independent spirit created from the hatred of a living person," Seishiro stated. "It's conjured from the pure emotional force of an individual, but not through a willful act, nor does it act under their control."

He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"In a way, it is the ultimate expression of human emotion. Action taken without conscious thought, force without any conscious control."

"I don't understand it," Subaru suddenly said, raising his head, his eyes stricken, pain etched on his face. "How can anyone hate someone that much? How can anyone hate ANYTHING that much?"

"You only say that," Seishiro told him, "because you don't hate anything at all." Hokuto nodded solemnly in agreement.

"What are you going to do now, Subaru?" she asked her brother. "Will you exorcise the ikiryo?"

Subaru shook his head glumly.

"That won't work, Hokuto-chan," Seishiro explained on his behalf. "An ikiryo is not a ghost, not a spell; onmyojutsu can repel it but not permanently dispel it. There are only two ways it can be destroyed; one is to exorcise the person who gave birth to it." There was no need for him to explain the second option; Hokuto knew that any spirit born to accomplish a specific goal would vanish of its own accord if that purpose was achieved.

"That means that, to keep the ikiryo from killing Tamiko-san, you need to find out whose hatred it represents," Hokuto reasoned.

Subaru's gaze went back to the window.

"I know that already."

He had sensed that, too.

Seishiro nodded, and he turned the car.

-X X X-

The apartment doorbell buzzed harshly as Subaru pressed the button. A few moments passed, then came the soft click of the lock, and the faint creak of worn hinges. A woman in her forties with tired eyes and her hair pulled back in a bun stood framed in the doorway.

"What do you want?" she asked bluntly. Her expression told Subaru that she was simply too worn to be polite.

"I'm sorry for calling at such an hour, Mrs. Takahashi. My name is Subaru Sumeragi; I am a classmate of Yuri-san's. May I come in and visit her?"

She looked at him with a dubious frown. Subaru didn't understand, until it slowly came to him that Yuri was unlikely to have many male callers.

He never did realize that it was his striking appearance that had impressed her as much as his presence.

After a long, thoughtful moment, she stepped back to make room for Subaru to pass and called, "Yuri! You have a guest!"

Subaru had barely gotten a glimpse of the shabby main room of the apartment before Yuri appeared from the single hall.

"Who is it, Mother? Oh--!" she exclaimed as she first caught sight of Subaru. "Subaru-kun!"

"Good evening, Yuri-san. Could we take a walk?" he offered. They both glanced at Yuri's mother, who nodded her assent.

"All right, Subaru-kun, I'd like that," Yuri said, smiling shyly.

It was a cool evening; the sun had slipped beneath the horizon to be replaced by starlight -- not the stars in the heavens, but the thousands of man-made stars that came out each night in Tokyo, in every color of the rainbow plus some hues not seen in nature. Even though his heart was heavy, Subaru couldn't help feeling happy for a moment at the reminder that people could create beauty as well as destroy it.

"This is really a surprise, Subaru-kun," Yuri was saying. "I didn't even know you knew where I lived."

He hadn't, but it had been easy enough to find out. Tracing the location of a person was easy for the head of the Sumeragi clan when he knew and had interacted with them.

Subaru sighed. He didn't have any energy for this. There wasn't any crusading determination; he just felt drained, and empty.

"Do you know what an ikiryo is, Yuri-san?" he asked.

"No," she said, surprised. "Is it one of your magic things, Subaru-kun?"

He turned, looking at her oddly.

"Magic things?"

"You're some kind of medium or spiritualist, aren't you? That's why you take days off from school, isn't it, because of your work?"

Subaru nodded.

"An onmyouji," he said. "I just hadn't realized that it was common knowledge."

Yuri raised one finger and said, "You shouldn't underestimate the speed and accuracy of the school's gossip network, especially about such an interesting subject!" She looked and sounded just like Hokuto, Subaru thought, before she flushed with embarrassment at having, perhaps, said too much.

"I guess not," he replied with a playful grin, an expression that died quickly as he began to explain an ikiryo. He wished that Seishiro was there; the older man was much better at explaining things. Maybe it was because he had more confidence in dealing with people than Subaru did.

Subaru finished his description a few minutes later. They had stopped and sat down on a quiet bench; Yuri had listened patiently the whole time.

"Subaru-kun," she asked, her voice trembling slightly, "why are you telling this to me?"

Subaru looked at her, his green eyes brilliant in the artificial light.

"Why do you hate Tamiko Hironagi so much, Yuri-san?"

There was a hiss of indrawn breath. Yuri's hands clenched in the fabric of her skirt.

"Will you listen?" she asked bitterly. "Or will you just rush off to her again?"

Subaru's eyes widened.

"Me?"

He had, though, he realized. Twice in two days he had abandoned Yuri for Tamiko's sake, first when she had needed help, then when she had asked.

That wasn't it, though.

"I'm sorry, Yuri-san, if you feel I have abandoned you, but the hatred to create an ikiryo does not build in a day. It isn't created out of a single act, no matter how much hurt that act makes a person feel." He didn't say anything about how trivial her pain seemed compared to things that others had suffered; Subaru knew that people's feelings weren't measured on some absolute standard, and what seemed meaningless to outsiders could be everything to the individual.

"It might as well have been you!" Yuri forced out. "All that frozen bitch had to do was beckon, and you went running without even a thought for me. It's always that way! Everyone sees the way I look, and they just turn away, like I wasn't even there! No one wants to make friends with 'that ugly child.' When I was a little girl, they used to call me the 'goblin girl,' because I was short, fat, and ugly!"

She began to sniffle.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this. Someone as beautiful as you couldn't understand."

"I never had any real friends while I was young," Subaru replied softly. "I was always in and out of school, you see, anc coming from an onmyouji clan as I do, people thought I was strange."

"They're still attracted to you, though," she shot back. "No boy ever gives me a second look, and no girl wants to be associated with me. When you look like I do, no one ever bothers to learn if there's anything worth knowing!"

She looked up at Subaru, tears streaming from her eyes.

That Tamiko is so mean and standoffish, yet every time she walks into a room everyone's attention is all over her! She won't talk to anyone, and yet everyone worships her!

"Subaru-kun, do you know that you were the first person who's ever taken an interest in anything important to me? My mother doesn't care about my life; ever since my father died she's had to work two jobs just to pay for the rent and for food. You actually seemed like you cared about my artwork, but you just left me standing there! Twice! For HER!" she shouted angrily.

Subaru sighed, understanding. It had been the straw that broke the camel's back, his action.

"You remind me of her," he told Yuri.

"What?"

"Both of you have suffered because of your appearance, because of people making assumptions just because of the way you look, without learning about the real you."

"What has she ever suffered?" Yuri snapped defiantly.

Subaru couldn't tell Yuri about Tamiko's past; he couldn't break a confidence, the trust she had placed in him. He did the next best thing, though.

"Do you know why Tamiko-san had to go the hospital yesterday, Yuri-san?"

Yuri shook her head.

So Subaru told her.

"You see?" he said. "Not everyone loves her; many people envy her beauty, or dislike her because she won't live up to their hopes. That's not all, though. Yesterday was because of collective feelings that had built up over years. Today, she was attacked again, almost killed, but it was because of an ikiryo -- a single person's feelings."

Yuri was trembling.

"You...you mean me?"

Subaru looked her full in the face.

"Yes, Yuri-san."

She raised one hand to her lips, biting reflexively at the knuckle.

"You...you can't mean that, Subaru-kun!"

He nodded once, firmly, his eyes not leaving hers.

"You have to let go of this hatred, Yuri-san. Unless you do that, the ikiryo can never be destroyed. Please, you don't want it to keep on, do you?"

Yuri took a deep breath, fighting for control. She was almost hysterical; she had faced too many emotional shocks, one after another. Yet, she at no time disbelieved Subaru, or thought about rejecting anything he said.

"I...I...no, I don't. I can't stand her, whatever you say, she's cold and mean and spiteful!..but...but I don't want her hurt. At least, I don't want to be the one to hurt her...I don't want to hurt anyone!"

"I can help you, Yuri-san," Subaru said, smiling kindly.

-X X X-

"What are we doing here?" Hokuto asked.

Seishiro smiled kindly at her as he turned off the car's ignition.

"We're protecting Subaru-kun's friend while he tries to exorcise the ikiryo. It's a very relentless kind of spirit."

"Ahh, because it's only made of emotion, so it doesn't plan anything, right?"

"Very good, Hokuto-chan!"

"Well, I am the big sister of the head of the Sumeragi clan!" Hokuto laughed heartily. "Wait a minute -- how did you know her address, Sei-chan?"

"I saw it at the registration desk at the hospital," he replied innocently.

"You were thinking ahead even then? Wow, that's great planning!"

Seishiro smiled modestly. He then stiffened, his face all at once becoming an expressionless mask.

"Sei-chan, what is it?"

"Wait here," he said, getting out of the car. Hokuto didn't look like she was going to obey without an explanation; he turned to her, eyes meeting hers, and she slumped back senseless into her seat.

At once, Seishiro extended his hand, and the form of his eagle shikigami took shape above it, perching lightly on his wrist. With a flick of his hand, the spirit-bird soared off towards the house across the street, moving much faster than its creater could run.

Of course, Seishiro was not running.

After all, he had no reason to.


	4. Chapter 4

Tamiko Hironagi's pencil scratched across the paper as she worked on her trigonometry problem set. The routine work was something of a relief for her after the strange events of the past two days. Subaru's face kept appearing in her mind, making her wonder about some of the things he had said, and about her responses. He was a kind boy, and he really didn't seem to care what he looked like. To him, she was just someone else in trouble.

She wished she was worth the effort he was spending on her.

Tamiko glanced down at the paper. She had just made a stupid mistake, writing down part of the question instead of the answer. Her mind was wandering badly -- more than that, she realized, she was tired, her thoughts becoming dull and sluggish. She looked at the clock; it was only eight.

Well, she thought, it wasn't too unnatural. She had been knocked off of a building that day, after all. Why shouldn't she be worn out, mentally and emotionally? Tamiko pushed back her chair and stood up, closing her workbook. She would go to bed now and rest.

It seemed even more like a good idea after she had changed into her nightgown. She was growing cold and even more tired; her arms and legs felt leaden, barely able to move. Tamiko slipped gratefully between the bedclothes, her eyes dropping shut almost of their own accord.

Suddenly -- it could have been minutes or hours later -- a keening shriek brought Tamiko bolt awake. Her eyes snapped open and she saw, amazingly, the angry form of a large eagle, circling tight spirals around her, slashing with its talons at a shapeless, formless thing in the air around her. The thing tore itself away from her, making Tamiko wince in pain, and fled from the eagle, diving for the far corner of the room.

Then, it froze in place, and began to shrink in on upon itself. Wide awake now, with no hint of her earlier fatigue, Tamiko watched the creature writhe and twist in place as, slowly, it seemed to diminish. It went on for what seemed to be forever, until it recovered itself and came soaring back at her, diving and twisting to avoid the eagle, which came at it with renewed vigor.

Then, the eagle dove through the middle of the thing, and pain shot through every inch of Tamiko's body, fire licking along every nerve. The agony ended quickly, though, leaving her shuddering, arms wrapped around herself.

"I'm not surprised that you felt that." The voice was smooth and cultured, but completely devoid of warmth. The eagle soared across the room to perch on the wrist of the tall, handsome man that stood framed in front of the window. The look in his deep brown eyes was so intense that Tamiko barely recognized him as Subaru's friend, without his glasses.

"H-how did you get in here?"

"I don't know why Subaru insists on wasting time on you, but for now I will respect his wishes."

The eagle shimmered and vanished. Tamiko stared mutely; she had nothing that she could say.

"Subaru destroyed half of the ikiryo haunting you. He's very good at that, exorcising the demons of pain and hatred that plague people."

"H-half? Ikiryo? I don't understand."

"You have a real talent," he told her, the ghost of a smile flitting about his lips. "Very few people can attract so much hate against themselves from people who refuse to act upon it."

He chuckled softly.

"Do you know, I have never before heard of an ikiryo formed out of two people's combined hatred? Or of someone so incredibly foolish as to actually manage to summon forth an ikiryo against herself?

"Really, it gives me an all-new understanding of the phrase, 'too stupid to live.'"

He shook his head with mock sorrow.

"You are amusing, though. I find that a...rarity."

He smiled again.

"You will not find my methods as gentle as your counterpart no doubt found Subaru's. Then again, your crime is less forgivable."

The world went black around her, the room and everything in it seeming to shatter and fall away like the image in a breaking mirror. Pain exploded through Tamiko, not physical pain, but a deeper, wracking torment that shot through her soul...as if some part of herself was being violently torn away.

Then the world dissolved again, in a shower of cherry blossoms.

-X X X-

"Hokuto-chan. Wake up, Hokuto-chan."

She wasn't sure if the voice or the hand gently shaking her shoulder woke her, but she opened her eyes to see Seishiro looking down at her.

"Sei-chan? What happened?"

"You fell asleep on guard duty, Hokuto-chan," Seishiro told her, chuckling softly.

"Eh? I would never do such a thing!"

"Oh, no?"

"Oooooh, Sei-chan, you're not telling me something!"

"Well, let's go pick up Subaru-kun. He's done so much on this case that we should treat him to a first-class dinner!" Seishiro shamelessly changed the subject.

"It's finished?"

"Yes...Subaru must have been successful in exorcising the person who created the ikiryo; you could feel it dissipate as he did so. I'm sure you would have noticed...if you had been awake," he teased.

Hokuto snorted and folded her arms over her chest. She hated when Seishiro ducked out of her questions.

-X X X-

Hokuto could not sleep that night. She tossed and turned in her futon for nearly an hour before she gave up, rose, and threw on a fluffy robe decorated with capering kittens. She left her apartment, crossed the hall, and entered Subaru's home. Brother and sister kept separate apartments for the sake of independence, but that separation was rarely respected by Hokuto. The fact was, she often worried for her gentler twin. He had the compassion that suited his work, but she didn't know if he had the strength of heart to witness all the shades of evil that an onmyouji had to see.

Subaru was still dressed, sitting at the window, looking out at the city with a cup of tea sitting untouched in front of him. Hokuto picked up his jacket, which he had left lying on the floor, and hung it up.

Sisterly intuition, she thought.

"You shouldn't treat your clothes like that, Subaru," she reproved. There was no real force behind her words; it was only a way to start the conversation.

"I'm sorry, Hokuto-chan," he said, turning his head.

She hadn't seen him look that empty in ages, perhaps ever. Hokuto came and stood behind her brother, slipping her arms around his neck, hugging him. She caught a glimpse of the reflection in the window, two faces next to one another with identical emerald eyes. She wondered again what quirk of fate had created two mixed twins who shared one face.

"What's wrong, Subaru?" she asked gently. "What is it about this one that has hurt you so badly?"

He didn't answer for a long time.

"I didn't do any good, Hokuto-chan."

"You saved Tamiko-san's life twice. You dispelled the ikiryo, and it would have kept trying to kill her until it succeeded. You helped Yuri-san to come to terms with her feelings."

Hokuto watched Subaru's eyes in the window. They didn't change.

"Why, Subaru? Why doesn't that count for anything?"

"It won't change anything about the future!" he suddenly wailed. As if a wall had been broken, the emptiness crumbled away, to be replaced by pure, naked agony. He pulled out of his sister's arms and turned in his chair to look up at her.

"Tomorrow morning, Yuri-san and Tamiko-san will go to school, and what will happen? People will look at Yuri-san and they will turn away from her just as they always have! She has a wonderful talent, Hokuto-chan, and no one cares! And what about Tamiko-san? She's in so much pain every day, and no one wants to help her, because all they see is their image of her, the angel or the cruel temptress. It will go on, and on, and on, just like it has in the past!"

His gloved hands clenched tightly around Hokuto's wrists, and now his eyes were clouded by tears. His head dropped, chin sagging to his chest.

"Oh, Subaru..." Hokuto freed her hands and hugged him again. "No one will care, you say?" She tipped his chin up to look at her, then gently turned him to face the window. "Don't you see someone?"

The lips of his reflection turned up in a faint smile.

"Hokuto-chan..."

"We do what we can, Subaru," she told him seriously. "That's all anyone can ask."

She ruffled his hair playfully.

"Now get to sleep, Subaru! I arranged for Sei-chan to pick you up after school tomorrow. We can't have you yawning through your Saturday-afternoon date!"

"H-Hokuto-chan?"


End file.
